ace your inner game

The Shift Foundation

We can not solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them.

Albert Einstein

Our world is out of balance. A perfect storm of complex circumstances and global crises are emerging and converging to sweep away many established social structures, institutions and norms. Perhaps never before in history, has humankind faced a convergence of crises of similar magnitude and complexity.

Shift Foundation offers coaching, consulting and retreat formats to navigate these times of unprecedented change and upheaval. We work with leaders, change makers and innovators to ace their inner game, activate their full potential and support them in positively impacting the world with their unique gifts.

We live in what many global leaders refer to as “VUCA times”—times of unprecedented change and upheaval characterized by global Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity, and Ambiguity.

Dr. Joel Levey

Conscious Leadership Coaching

In face of the unprecedented pace of change and instability of today’s world, it is increasingly important for leaders to understand and master their inner workings. While subject matter expertise is still essential, forward-thinking leaders are devoted to sincere self-inquiry and reflection in order to align with their deepest source of purpose and impact. They seek insight and challenge to widen their perception of who they are and what they are capable of achieving. By better understanding their inner landscape, great leaders bring about sustainable engagement within their teams and enable individuals to expand their potential while being aware of their shortcomings. This makes them more capable, trust-worthy and change resilient leaders and managers of teams and organizations.

Using a set of interventions based on positive psychology, contemplative practices and well-established coaching models, we help individuals unlock their leadership potential. The program will be designed to fit the individual’s needs and usually takes place over the course of eight to ten sessions.

Transitional Life Coaching

From time to time, we all go through major changes and transitions in our life. Whether it is changing careers, founding a business, moving countries, starting or ending a relationship, starting a family or dealing with loss of some kind. Such transitional periods can frighten and overwhelm us, sometimes leading to a state of paralysis or despair. In Buddhist philosophy, such transitions are often compared to crossing a river on a raft. They can be very disorienting and confusing, especially when you loose sight of the river bank that you are leaving behind.

While these times can be incredibly trying, they usually also offer an opportunity for immense personal growth and learning if seen in the right light. We are deeply passionate to support and guide you through tumultuous times, empower you to step out of your comfort zone and move beyond your perceived obstacles. Together we will create and implement a vision and plan that generates the courage, energy and determination that you need to create the life that you want and find lasting fulfilment.

The two most powerful questions leaders and organisations can ask themselves are ‘What am I not seeing?’ and ‘What else might be true?’

Tony Schwartz

Conscious Business Activation

Any company facing competitive disruption, undertaking a transformation or steering for more growth has both a business challenge and a human challenge. By focusing on the invisible human factors that stand in the way of organizational transformation and sustainable high performance, we help you unlock dormant potential within your organization. By building a culture of self-awareness and growth, we help managers and teams see through blind spots and acknowledge insecurities or shortcomings rather than unconsciously acting them out. As a result, employees spend less energy defending personal values and instead have more energy available to create external value. As a consequence, conscious companies treat their stakeholders better - their suppliers are happier to do business with them, employees are more engaged, productive, and likely to stay. These companies are more welcome in their communities and their customers are more satisfied and loyal. Conscious companies give more, and they get more in return.

Business Innovation Consulting

Like any living organism on this planet, we all need to grow and adapt to constantly changing environments. This is true for organizations as much as it is true for individuals. Yet the prospect of change often creates a deep sense of fear of the unknown, leading to subconscious resistance and contraction. This usually hinders companies, teams and individuals to continuously reinvent themselves. By not questioning and refining their own belief structures and core assumptions, many companies loose their competitive edge and ability to keep up with competitors. While an innate resistance and fear of change will never cease to exist, we can consciously cultivate values and practices within teams and individuals that allow them to adapt to change in more wholesome and enriching ways.

Having introduced multiple innovation projects and processes for Corporates as well as Start-Ups, we can help you to successfully upgrade your ability and propensity to innovate and navigate major transformations.

Let the waters settle and you will see the moon and the stars mirrored in your own being.

Rumi

Shift Business Retreats

Join us for a life-changing retreat for CEOs, Co-Founders or VCs and immerse yourself in the complexity and vulnerability of being a leader with up to 15 other smart and courageous entrepreneurs. This retreat offers a supported environment to unravel old stories about yourself and find blind spots that have prohibited you from truly stepping into your power and generate the impact you have always wished to see. Carefully curated, the experience is an inner journey towards your deepest sense of self and a gentle invitation to confront the parts that may have remained unconscious and no longer serve you. By blending practical skills, radical self inquiry and shared experiences, Shift Business Retreats enhance your leadership and resiliency. You will leave with greater awareness of your leadership habits as well as a customized strategy for being the leader you want to be and a network of peers that you can rely on. You will return home with a deeper understanding of the values that drive you as a leader and new understanding of what you are capable of achieving in this lifetime.

Team Experiences

We believe that work offers a possibility for the full realization and expression of human potential - work can be the way we achieve our fullest self. Our Team Experiences and Organizational offerings provide a mix of content that develop skill, capacity, and experience to grow the human being. By consciously facilitating the growth of the collective, we are consciously creating the company that we would like to work for. Tools such as facilitated leadership groups, organizational change management explorations, and deep trainings move the organization closer to its fullest expression of the inherent values. Similarly, company cultures are neither top-down dictates nor do they happen by accident - they are co-creative expressions of conscious, open-minded leaders allowing for each member of the organization to grow and participate as an authentic human being. Our programs are based on well-researched scientific evidence and help teams to reduce stress reactivity, increase resilience, enhance interpersonal relationships and build emotional intelligence.

Ninety-eight percent of what is important cannot be measured.

Edward Deming

Sebastian Nienaber

Sebastian Nienaber is a consciousness entrepreneur and the founder of Shift Retreats and Shift Foundation which aim to facilitate transformation and change in individuals and organizations.

He started his professional career at Rocket Internet, a fast-paced incubator for internet Start-ups. There he was part of multiple hyper growth startups and founded an e-commerce company called Dealstreet. After leaving Rocket, Sebastian advised multiple early-stage tech companies at the intersection of Product Development, Finance and Funding. In a longer commitment with one of these companies he launched the US business of Shore.com – a European B2B SaaS company digitizing Small and Medium Businesses – opening offices in Los Angeles and New York.

Next to all things digital, Sebastian has been interested in contemplative sciences and self-inquiry technologies from an early age. Practicing meditation since age 16, Sebastian has been studying various contemplative traditions like Zen, Theravada and Advaita. Being also drawn to Shamanism, Sebastian has been working and training with various medicine men and plant teachers since 2009. Between 2010 and 2014, he underwent a profound inner transformation during which he was mostly living in retreat centers, monasteries and jungles retreats across Asia and South America. Emerging from this inner journey, Sebastian started to fuse his interest in tech and entrepreneurship with his passion for awareness-based practices by founding Profuse29, a mindfulness-based business consultancy, and Hacking Happiness, a conference on the intersection of entrepreneurship, technology and wellbeing.

Sebastian is passionate about sparking transformation within organizations and individuals. He believes that freedom, power and abundance are the result of our commitment to self-discovery and our willingness to change. Only when we understand our inner workings, can we adjust unconscious behaviors and unlock our full potential.

Georgia Dienst

Georgia Dienst is a transformational coach, futurist and humanitarian at heart. She works with leaders, change makers and innovators on reaching their full potential and supports them to positively impact the world with their unique gifts.

Having worked at Google X and a handful of hyper growth technology startups, transformation has been part of Georgia’s DNA from an early age on. She started her career in the early days of internet startups in New York where she was part of the core team that developed the first ever social media network “aSmallWorld”. Later she was hired by Google in London to transform the branding sector of their business and closed the largest ever branding deal in Google’s history at the time for the World Cup.

Being drawn to cutting-edge, futuristic technology and science, Georgia was then given the opportunity to transfer within Google to it’s moonshot factory in Silicon Valley “Google X”. As Director of “Solve for X”, she lead a team that scouted for inventors and entrepreneurs who build groundbreaking scientific and technological innovations that aim to improve the lives of billions of people.

Transformation, innovation and impact have been at the core of Georgia’s personal journey as much as they have been part of her career. In her early 20ies, she came across meditation, NLP and other inner technolgies that allowed her to fundamentally shift how she perceived reality and allowed her to create the life that she actually wanted to live.

Georgia is dedicated to helping others uncover blind spots that are holding them back, support them to reach their goals and create the impact and life they truly wish to see. Her desire is to enable others to cultivate a deep sense of inner peace and freedom while supporting them to step into their full potential and power.